Wednesday, April 19, 2017

BOOK CHEAP AIR TICKETS THROUGH AIR.IRCTC

BOOK CHEAP AIR TICKETS FOR DOMESTIC FLIGHTS

We are all living in a very fast paced world and we all have very busy schedule. That's why more often than not, time becomes more critical than money. Most of us travel frequently for personal as well as official purposes. In such situations, a low cost air ticket can save both money and time. With IRCTC, a giant in travel industry, finding cheap air tickets is not a problem.

The best thing with IRCTC is that being a central government organisation, it is highly reliable and there is no scope for fraudulent dealings. Moreover, the same login credentials can be used for booking air tickets which are used for making train ticket reservation.

Through www.air.irctc.co.in, we can book domestic as well as international flight tickets. IRCTC offers cheap and low cost domestic air tickets for almost all places in India through various airlines such as Jet Airways, Air India, Spice Jet, Indigo, Go Air and Vistara Airline at minimum processing fee.

To enquire and book cheap domestic air tickets, please visit www.air.irctc.co.in and login using your normal IRCTC login ID and password which you use for making train ticket reservation. If you don't have IRCTC login ID and password, please register yourself. After you login, click on "Flights". The screen which appears can be used to enquire and book domestic and international flights. You can also book LTC tours for yourself and your family as well.

To book domestic flight tickets, enter the names of originating and destination city/ airport, date of travel, number of adult passengers, number of children and infants, and class of travel (Economy/ Business). For airline preference, select "All Airlines". Now click on "Search". As an example, I have searched flights from Delhi to Mumbai for 15th July, 2015 for one adult and there were about 74 such flights available.

Here you get various information such as name of airline, departure and arrival times, flight duration, number of en route stoppages, and price to be paid for the air ticket. The flights are arranged in ascending order of ticket price. You can select the appropriate flight for you and book it accordingly.

To make a comparative study, I searched on 13th July for tickets from Delhi To Mumbai for 13th August, 2015 (data shown in Table-I) and 15th July, 2015 (data shown in Table-II).

TABLE-I: AIRFARE FOR 13.08.2015

S.

No.

Airline

Fare/No of flights

air.irctc

Fare/No of flights

Makemytrip

Fare/No of flights

Cleartrip

Fare/No of flights

Yatra

1

Jet

Airways

2998/13

2999/12

2999/13

2999/13

2

Go Air

3558/05

3558/05

3558/05

3558/05

3

Air India

3560/12

3561/10

3561/10

3561/10

4

Vistara

Airline

3560/05

3561/05

3561/05

3561/05

5

Go Air

3638/03

3638/03

3638/03

3638/03

6

IndiGo

3680/03

3605/02

3601/03

3601/02

7

Air India

3747/03

3748/02

3748/02

3748/02

8

IndiGo

3816/04

3741/05

3737/04

3737/05

9

IndiGo

4329/08

4254/08

4250/08

4250/08

10

IndiGo

5047/01

4972/01

4968/01

4968/01

11

Air India

5606/01

-

-

12

Jet

Airways

6577/02

6578/03

6578/02

6578/02

13

Air india

12839/01

-

-

14

Air India

16481/01

-

-

15

Spicejet

-

3389/03

3349/04

3600/03

16

Spicejet

-

3821/01

3559/04

4032/01

In Table-I shown above, 2nd column shows the name of airline. Column numbers 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th show the fare and number of flights with that fare which are searched by air.irctc, Makemytrip, Cleartrip, and Yatra.com, respectively. We see that there is not much difference in fare searched by different agencies. However, there is a large difference in fare charged by different airlines. The lowest fare is charged by Jet Airways, followed by Go Air and Air India.

TABLE-II: AIRFARE FOR 15.07.2015

S. No.

Airline

Fare/No of flights

Cleartrip

1

Air India

3621/01

2

Spicejet

3632/01

3

IndiGo

3651/02

4

GoAir

3789/02

5

Air India

3885/01

6

Jet Airways

3895/03

7

Air India

3980/05

8

Vistara

4035/01

9

Spicejet

4064/01

10

GoAir

4249/02

11

IndiGo

4300/03

12

Air India

4342/01

13

GoAir

4563/01

14

Spicejet

4682/02

15

Air India

4938/03

16

GoAir

4967/02

17

Jet Airways

5068/02

18

Vistara

5522/03

19

Air India

5606/01

20

IndiGo

6416/11

21

Jet Airways

6578/07

22

Vistara

6625/01

23

Jet Airways

8341/01

24

Air India

9218/01

25

Jet Airways

9503/02

In Table-II shown above, the airfare has been searched by Cleartrip. It is clear that when journey date is very close then relatively more airfare is charged by almost all airlines.

However, I have found that sometime, we get low fare flights searched by one agency as compared to the flights searched by other agency. This is evident from the following two diagrams.

In the first diagram, the Delhi-Mumbai flight has been searched by Cleartrip for 13th August, 2015. The lowest fare is offered by Jet Airways which is Rs. 2999/- In the second diagram, the same flight has been searched by IRCTC and the lowest fare offered by IndiGo is Rs. 2269/- There is difference of more than Rs 700/- which is substantial.

The answers related to general queries of passengers have been put under "FAQs" by IRCTC. These answers are available at www.air.irctc.co.in

BOOK CHEAP AIR TICKETS FOR INTERNATIONAL FLIGHTS

We can also book cheap international flight tickets through IRCTC. For this, we have to select "International" in the 2nd diagram shown in the beginning. There is additional choice of "First Class" available for international flights. IRCTC searches various airlines for international flights such as Qatar Airways, China Southern Airlines, Emirates, Klm Royal Dutch, Cathay Pacific Airways, Swiss, Turkish Airlines, British Airways Plc, Thai Airways Intl Ltd, Alitalia SPA, Lufthansa, Aeroflot, Virgin Atlantic, Jet Airways, Air India, Etihad Airways, Gulf Air, Ethiopian Airlines C, Oman Air etc.

IMPORTANT POINTS RELATED TO AIR TRAVEL

Some airlines are known as full service airlines. These include Jet Airways, Kingfisher Airlines (Kingfisher Class / First) and Air India (AI & IC) which offer full services including free in-flight meals.

Some airlines come under the category of Low cost Carriers which are known for their lower fares and the exclusion of services such as free in-flight meals. These include SpiceJet, JetLite, IndiGo, GoAir and Kingfisher Airlines(Kingfisher Red).

Passengers carrying E-tickets should have one of the photo identification document as Passport (most preferred and mandatory for International Travel), Driving License, Photo Credit Card, PAN Card issued by the Income Tax Department, Voter's ID Card issued by the Election Commission or Government Issued ID-Card. It is important that the name on the E-Ticket matches the name on the photo identification produced for travel, else the passenger could be denied boarding.